


Please Remember When I Say

by spacetrek



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, i'm just so glad the two of them trust each other enough to talk u know, in this house we support healthy physical expression of emotion, unbeta'd and barely proofread as always because i'm running for Most Irresponsible Writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-07 13:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18874480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetrek/pseuds/spacetrek
Summary: Coffee, colorful mugs, and the human connection you need when you're a superhero--even if one of you is an alien.





	1. Hold Fast

Bruce has had a bad week.

Clark can see it in the shadows under his eyes, the stiffness of his posture, the white-knuckle grip on the coffee mug.  
 

There’s no good way to broach the topic—there never is—so Clark just goes for the direct approach.“Who was it?”  
 

“None of your damn business,”Bruce snaps.He grimaces, running a hand over his face.He’s got bandages on both wrists and up one arm.X-ray vision tells Clark they’re covering burns—chemical, from the looks of them.  
 

Clark keeps his mouth shut.The first ten minutes are the hardest part of this whole thing—if he pushes too hard, says the wrong thing, Bruce will leave, disappear into Gotham’s underbelly and try to work out whatever ugly festering _thing_ has latched onto his heart and mind on the streets.It won’t work—it never does—but Bruce will kill himself trying.  
 

If he needs to snap and snarl at Clark over a cup of coffee in Clark’s apartment, well.That’s a small price to pay for the trust implicit in Bruce showing up at all.  
 

Bruce takes a long drink of his coffee, wincing a little as he burns his throat.The sweatshirt he’s wearing is stretched out at the neck and the sleeves have fallen halfway down his hands.He doesn’t seem to notice.  
 

“Just—"Bruce licks his lips, and he doesn’t flinch when his tongue hits what is clearly a recent split. “Clark, I just want you to talk about something else.”  
 

“Okay.”Clark laces his fingers together on the table in front of him.“Anything in particular?”  
 

Bruce’s mouth twitches, a bitter facsimile of a smile.“No work.”  
 

This, Clark can do.Words—the languages of his adopted home—are something he has chosen as much as he has anything else.Maybe more than he has many other things.  
 

He talks, slipping easily into storyteller mode.A mishap with the water cooler at the Planet is a sitcom short; Lois’ most recent scheme to get into a Lexcorp facility becomes a gripping drama; last week’s thunderstorm with multicolor lightning a documentary, all of it wound through with humor and the kind of insignificant significance Clark himself needs sometimes.  
 

Bruce mostly keeps to his coffee, but Clark can tell that he’s listening, and now and then he’ll catch Bruce watching him with the kind of focus he usually reserves for some new puzzle or intriguing problem.He smiles when he meets Bruce’s eyes, and Bruce doesn’t smile back, but his face softens, little by little, as his shoulders loosen and his hands relax their death grip on the mug.  
 

It’s quiet for several minutes after Clark finishes his last story, but it’s a good quiet, the comfortable quiet that Clark loves Bruce for—the kind of quiet where he feels okay, just for a minute, to shut out the cacophony of the world and listen to the little noises in his immediate surroundings and the steady one-two of Bruce’s heart.  
 

“Two-Face robbed a chemical plant four nights ago.”  
 

Clark snaps back into focus.Bruce still isn’t looking at him, but the strung-wire tension hasn’t returned to his body, either.   
 

Bruce runs his thumb over the cheerful yellow sunflowers printed on his mug, like he hasn’t seen them a dozen times, like Clark doesn’t give him this mug every time he shows up early or late with bruises on his face and bandages on his body and the kind of choking fear and grief that you can’t will away on his heart.“I found him last night.I tried to talk to him—to get him help.”Bruce closes his eyes, bites his lip.“I think—sometimes I look at him and I see Harvey, like he used to be, and it—"   
 

Bruce cuts off, swallowing hard.Clark can hear the catch in his throat, the hitch in his breathing.He can smell blood where Bruce broke the scab on his lip.“Bruce,”he says, gently as he can.  
 

“I know I can’t help him unless he wants to help himself,”Bruce says, stiff, “but I—God, Clark.”He lets go of his mug for the first time since Clark gave it to him, burying his face in his hands.“I want to.”  
 

“I know.”And he does—the helpless desperation, the aching weight of knowing there’s nothing you can do for someone who won’t or can't help themselves, but hoping beyond hope that something will change.   
 

He doesn’t offer any platitudes.Bruce doesn't want to hear them, doesn't want to indulge in what he considers coddling and untruth.All Clark can do is listen.  
 

 _A burden shared is a burden halved,_ people say, but Clark doubts Bruce shares even a tenth of his burdens.  
 

He’ll still take what he can.  
 

“Sorry to keep you up,”Bruce says, like he always does.  
 

“Don’t be,”Clark says, like _he_ always does.“I don’t need a lot of sleep.”  
 

Sometimes this makes Bruce smile, sometimes it doesn’t.It doesn’t tonight, but that’s okay.  
 

“Whatever gives you hope,”Clark adds, trying to keep his tone light.  
 

Bruce is silent, and Clark doesn’t think anything of it.But—“I don’t need hope, with you.”  
 

Clark looks up, startled, but Bruce’s gaze is fixed firmly on his cooling coffee.“It’s not hope if you know it will happen.”His mouth quirks.“And you’ve got enough unsubstantiated dreams for the both of us.”  
 

And that’s—maybe it’s a little odd, but it’s also one of the most honest and cautiously encouraging things Clark has ever heard, and isn’t that just like Bruce.  
 

“You know me.”Bruce glances up, and Clark shrugs theatrically.“Spes vincit.”  
 

Bruce drops his eyes back to his coffee, but he’s smiling too, just a little.“Maybe.”  
 

Clark reaches across the table to rest his hand on top of Bruce’s where it’s still wrapped around the mug.The coffee is cold, and Bruce’s hands aren’t much better, but Clark’s hand is warm.  Bruce releases the mug entirely to squeeze Clark’s fingers, hard.  
 

This time, when Clark smiles, he doesn’t look away.


	2. Fear Not

Something is wrong with Clark.  
  


Bruce isn’t sure what—doesn’t even know where to start, in fact—but the certainty that _something_ is wrong has been niggling at him since the League mission this morning.  
  


And so, with bruises on his arms and throat from a shapeshifting robot and more on his ribs from Clark’s spectacular last-second rescue, he finds himself knocking on Clark’s door at 23:37.  
  


He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he knows that he has to do something.  
  


That knowledge solidifies into crystal fact the moment Clark opens the door.  
  


“Hey, Bruce.”Clark, looking nothing like Superman in sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt, smiles at him.Bruce has seen better fake smiles at his parties.“You want coffee?”He’s already heading to the kitchen, so Bruce doesn’t dissuade him.  
  


Stepping inside, Bruce studies Clark carefully as he moves around the kitchen.No stiffness, no hesitance, no indication of headache.Likely nothing physical, as Bruce had guessed.  
  


It’s not as reassuring as he thinks it should be.  
  


He’s sitting at the table, in the chair he always occupies when he’s not here casually or on business, but for that thing in between, when Clark returns with two cups of coffee.  
  


Bruce stares at the mug he’s been handed, at the chipped handle and obnoxiously cheerful yellow sunflowers, and something twists horribly in his throat and belly.  
  


This is the mug Clark only gives him when he comes, beat halfway to hell, to sit and listen to Clark talk for half an hour until his head clears and his fists unclench and he can think straight again.  
  


Clark has spent most of the day carrying something heavy enough that Superman’s shoulders are bent beneath it, and still he makes coffee, sits across the table with expectant eyes and steady hands, ready and willing to take some weight of Bruce’s, regardless of what he’s already struggling under.  
  


“Long day?”Clark’s voice is rough with exhaustion, but still as gentle and genuine as ever.  
  


Bruce takes three measured breaths and doesn’t look up from his coffee.The thing in his throat loosens enough for him to say, “I’m fine, Clark."  
  


Clark’s brow is furrowing.Bruce shakes his head, forestalling a protest.“I’m _fine._ I just wanted to see you.”It’s almost the truth.  
  


“Oh.”Clark doesn’t look completely convinced, but his posture slumps slightly.It looks more weary than relieved.“Did you want—"  
  


“I’m worried about you,”Bruce says bluntly.Clark is staring at him now, wide-eyed.“You’ve been—quiet.”  
  


The corner of Clark’s mouth turns up, a tired shadow of his usual brilliant smile.“And here I thought you’d love that.”  
  


“I don’t.I—"How does Clark _do_ this?He’d always assumed his was the harder role in their little talks, poked and prodded to open up, but this might actually be worse.There’s something terribly heavy and vulnerable about being the one entrusted with the power to dull the knife's edge he can feel under every word Clark says—or cut them both to pieces on it.  
  


Still—this is Clark.He doesn’t expect sugarcoating, and he isn’t going to bite Bruce’s head off for trying.“What’s wrong?”  
  


Clark is still looking at him like he’s trying to figure out what the hell Bruce is doing.Bruce can relate to that.“Do you want to switch mugs?”he asks, clearly trying for humor.  
  


“Stop deflecting,”Bruce snaps, irritation and nerves jerking him halfway out his chair.He sits back down, hard.“Sorry, I’m—sorry.”He’s barely managed a full sentence and he’s still fucking it up spectacularly.   
  


“No, don’t—don’t be.”When Bruce looks up again, Clark is watching him, fingers wrapped tightly around the mug.No, not tightly—it would be easier for Clark to crush that mug to powder than it was for him to set it carefully back on the table, like he was doing now.He’s in control.  
  


He’s always so in control.  
  


That thought, absurdly, is what gets Bruce back on track.

  
“Something is wrong,” he says, because that indistinct _I know you and this is wrong_ has been tugging at his instincts all day, and his instincts are rarely incorrect.  
  


Clark’s eyes flick to his neck, to—to the bruises under his turtleneck, and it feels like the kind of epiphany Bruce gets only after he works 48 hours straight for it.  
  


“It’s about the mission this morning.”  
  


“World’s greatest detective.”It sounds strangely bitter, and Bruce is still trying to figure out how to counter it when Clark shuts that down entirely by saying, “I almost got you killed.”  
  


 _What?_ “What,” he says aloud.He’s flipping through his mental highlights—it hadn’t been the cleanest takedown they’d ever exercised, but no one was hurt beyond a few bruises and strains; they’d neutralized the threat so what—  
  


Clark is staring at his coffee in lieu of looking at Bruce, and it’s like déjà vu flipped inside-out.“I left you to go confront Luthor.I thought the robots in the warehouse were down, but—”He swallows, and this is clearly hurting him, but Clark has never taken the easy way out, even—especially—when it’s about him.“I didn’t check to see if they had a backup power source.I didn’t think they’d get up again; it was an oversight and—"  
  


“Clark, _I_ didn’t check to see if they had a backup power source.”Bruce doesn’t have a clue where this is coming from.Clark doesn’t usually beat himself up over these sorts of things.“You couldn’t have known.”  
  


Clark’s eyes narrow, and the flash of anger is almost a relief after the guilt and near-apathy Bruce has received so far.“Stop making excuses for me.”  
  


Bruce scowls, his own temper rising to match Clark’s.As long as he keeps a hold on it—“I’m not making excuses for you.If you had screwed up I would have come knocking on your door tonight for a different reason entirely.There was nothing you could have done.”  
  


It’s a harsh truth—that there are some things even Superman cannot do—and Clark averts his eyes.  
  


“My fault or not,”he says, with a stubborn twist to his mouth that Bruce is familiar with and a fragile tone that he is not, “you almost died.”  
  


Ah.  
  


Second epiphany of the night, and Bruce feels suddenly, stupidly relieved, because this, _this,_ is the crux of the matter, the real answer to the problem.   
  


This is something he can fix.  
  


“Clark.”No answer.“Clark, look at me.”Blue eyes reluctantly flick across the table to meet his own.Following his instincts—they haven’t let him down yet tonight—and the innumerable times Clark has done this for him, Bruce reaches over to grab Clark’s hand and squeeze until his joints creak in protest.“I’m all right.”  
  


Wood screeches as Clark lurches out of his chair, pulling Bruce up and in as he goes.Bruce leans into the hug, bringing his own arms up to wrap around Clark’s waist.Clark’s face is buried in his shoulder, and Bruce can feel his unsteady breathing across his throat.  
  


This he understands.This he can do.  
  


“I’m all right,”he murmurs again.He’s done this for Dick before, and Dick has returned the favor.Clark has gripped his hand or arm or shoulder in passing or during a quiet moment more times than he can count, silent reassurance.

  
It’s not weakness.It’s necessary in their line of work—human contact, human reminder.  
  


 _I’m here._ I’m okay.We made it.  
  


Clark’s breathing sounds wet, but more even than it did a minute ago.“I’m sorry.”  
  


Bruce turns that one over for a moment.“For what?”

  
Clark pulls back, just a little, just enough to see Bruce’s face.His eyes are glossy with tears and his smile is shaky, but he looks—brighter.More normal.“Possibly screwing up.Moping around.Having strong emotions in your general vicinity.”  
  


Mockery.Definitely doing better.Bruce pulls his hands back in between them, allowing Clark’s to keep their grip on his biceps.He counts off his points on his fingers, just to be sure Clark will understand.“You did not screw up.Being off-balance after a taxing mission is not moping.And we will file the emotional display under ‘extenuating circumstances’ and never speak of it again.”  
  


That gets him a real smile, a full-face smile, the one that pulls at the corners of his own mouth, even when he doesn’t want it to.“Nice use of the royal we.”  
  


“Hn.”  
  


“Bruce—"  
  


Bruce tenses.He forces himself to relax, and if the man in front of him was anyone but who he was it would have gone unnoticed, but Bruce is under no illusions here.  
  


He doesn’t want a drawn-out expression of gratitude, but if Clark wants to give one—  
  


But Clark just leans in to bump their foreheads together and smiles again, softer this time.“Thank you.”  
  


With Clark’s eyes inches away, bright with a color like nothing else on the planet—he’s checked—and an equally unmatchable spirit, Bruce abruptly realizes that they’ve crossed so many of his self-made barriers there’s hardly anything left.  
  


Clark has seen him fall apart a dozen different ways and patiently stood by to pick up the pieces, and Bruce has done the same for him.  
  


It should be terrifying, to be known like this, but Bruce mostly just feels—okay.  
  


Relieved.  
  


Maybe that will change when Clark isn’t doing his earnest staring thing, but—maybe it won’t.  
  


This time, when Clark smiles, he smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure what I think of this, but I AM sure that I don't want to mess with it, so.

**Author's Note:**

> I've written something very similar to this in the past and I will probably write something very similar to both of these in the future. I have a second chapter with their roles reversed that I will hopefully finish before I go back to school, but who knows at this point
> 
> I thought about trying a more ambitious Latin phrase but I haven't done it seriously in 2 years and I don't trust myself
> 
> titles in this are from "Always" by Owl City


End file.
